Hats off to the crowd. I was saying to myself before the game, "These games are in KC, Jayhawk country, so why are there so many blue shirts in the crowd always sitting on their hands in these 'neutral site' games?" Not just in KC, but a lot of the sites the fans never get up on their feet! KC really represented in the KU/UNC game. The best atmosphere of the tournament so far. Great job my fellow KU fans!

KANSAS CITY, MO. — What saved North Carolina’s season also doomed it in the end. The Tar Heels, who had shot so well recently, went cold from the perimeter against one of the best defensive teams in the nation and suffered a season-ending 70-58 defeat against Kansas on Sunday night in the third round of the NCAA tournament.

This is what UNC coach Roy Williams feared when he changed his strategy midseason and began using a four-guard starting lineup. Before making that change, Williams said he didn’t want the Tar Heels to be a team that lived by the 3-pointer and died by it.

But the Heels’ perimeter offense often gave them life during the past six weeks. It extinguished it on Sunday.

“It definitely was a nightmare in the second half, there’s no question about that,” Williams said when asked if this – a 30.1 percent shooting performance – had represented a nightmare scenario for his team. “… The change in the lineup, I tried to get the best five basketball players on the court for us. We knew we were giving up some rebounding, but we knew we were adding some things offensively from the perimeter.”

The change saved UNC’s season. Entering Sunday, the Tar Heels (25-11) had won nine of their past 11 games with the smaller lineup. But at the Sprint Center on Sunday, Kansas (31-5), which leads the nation in field goal percentage defense, limited the Heels on the outside and didn’t allow anything on the interior, either.

Reggie Bullock, P.J. Hairston and James Michael McAdoo – UNC’s top three scorers – missed far more than they made, both on the perimeter and inside. They combined for 31 points and made 12 of their 43 field goal attempts.

On the outside, Bullock and Hairston, the Heels’ two best shooters, made just four of their 13 3-point attempts.

“We couldn’t make a shot,” Hairston said, “and our missed shots led to their run-outs and they got some open jump shots and layups in transition. And we would come down and we would just miss shots.”

On the inside, meanwhile, McAdoo missed 14 of his 19 attempts from the field. He had difficulty converting open jump shots into points, and even more difficulty trying to score over Jeff Withey, Kansas’ 7-foot senior center.

“Just missed a lot of easy shots,” McAdoo said quietly. “A lot of open jump shots at the rim. Just wasn’t able to finish. Credit that to good defense, I guess.”

The Heels missed an abundance of shots during the first half, too, but still held a 30-21 halftime lead despite shooting 26.2 percent, their second-worst percentage in a half this season. As promising as the nine-point halftime lead might have seemed, the Tar Heels failed to capitalize on opportunities to extend it.

They attempted 14 more shots from the field than Kansas during the first half, and forced 12 Jayhawks turnovers. Kansas made just seven of its 28 field goal attempts in the first half, yet still trailed by less than double-digits at halftime.

“I was OK with the nine-point lead,” Bullock said. “In the second half, we just came out dead flat, for like the first six, eight minutes of the (half).

“Nine points is three possessions … three 3s and you’re right back in it. You can do that in two minutes, or a minute and a half.”

It took Kansas all of four and a half minutes to tie the game at 35. The Jayhawks took the lead for good on their next possession when Travis Releford, the senior guard who led Kansas with 22 points, tipped in a missed shot.

That was a theme for Kansas during the second half: production from Releford. And points close to the basket.

The Jayhawks made 17 shots from the field during the second half and all of them, outside of five 3-pointers, were layups. After such a dreadful performance in the first half, Kansas executed its offense with ease during the final 20 minutes.

“Even though we played miserably the first half, I thought they could have played a lot better, too,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “At least we kept ourselves within striking distance.”

When things started go badly, though, the Tar Heels failed to stay close.

About four minutes after Kansas took the lead for good, it led by 10, and UNC never again cut its deficit into single digits. The Tar Heels couldn’t make outside shots and their backup plan of trying to penetrate failed, too. Withey blocked five shots but altered countless others.

“I actually told him that after the game – I was like, I couldn’t get over you,” said Dexter Strickland, the UNC senior guard who finished with nine points and three assists in his final collegiate game. “His hands, his arms are just so long, and it was so hard to finish.”

Bullock spoke with tears in his eyes about playing for the final time alongside Strickland, and in the moments after their season ended the Tar Heels sat quietly in front of their lockers.

More than a month ago, in the final moments of a loss at Duke, the Heels had endured chants of “NIT.” Williams in recent weeks had chided those who had “abandoned ship” on his team, and he said he was proud of how far the Tar Heels had come.

What worried him most, though, came to fruition on Sunday. The Tar Heels died by the 3-pointer, and ended their season for the second consecutive March with a loss in Missouri against Kansas.

That's good stuff. I said it earlier this season and I know there are some differences, but I think playing ISU and their Euro/NBA 3 point shooting style really helped prepare KU for this type of team going into the NCAA tourney.

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You can't buy happiness. But you can buy beer. And that's pretty much the same thing.

This... The team that wins it all is the one that can string together enough non-cold days to make it through a field of 64. Perhaps not the only factor before the sweet 16, but after it, any cold day will mean certain death to a team - too much talent in those rounds to survive a bad day shooting..

KU has hit their stride at the perfect time. Good for them and their fans... Talent and good timing for a hot streak is a good way to win it all...

And yet, when KU lost to Bucknell, Bradley and UNI, that was a sign of being "over-rated". Or they "choked". Or Bill Self was "too afraid of mid majors". Or, or, or, or.

Nobody ever cut KU slack and said, damn: the tourney's a tough deal. 1 and done, bad shooting night and you're out. They were too busy pinning the losses as a sure sign of failure and ordering T-shirts online.

I think everybody is surprised when a power house goes down to a mid-major in an early round. I do think there is some "overlooking" factor that happens, mix that with a cold night of shooting, and you get last year's Norfolk State for Mizzou. But a focused power house should be able to overcome a somewhat bad night with pure will (in the first round and maybe the 2nd round) I'd think. I don't think they were over-rated at all, but it's not like folks who don't like KU (I'm on of them) wouldn't take the opportunity to dump on you even if it's not right. It's not very often that KU loses, so for those of us who live in KC, on the Missouri side, we have to take our digs when we can. But I must admit, I don't think I called them over-rated. In the case of Bucknell, having family who graduated from there, it was just sweet. Then again, being from Va. Beach originally, left me wide open to plenty of "back home" criticism form the friends too. That being said, I'm a Chiefs fan so having insults lobbed at me about my team's failures means little anymore.

Michighan is gonna pack you guys shit in tight... You are not good... You struggled against 2 easy teams

This is a classic case of "I'm angry my team just lost to your team so your team is gonna get SMASHED in the next round. Also, you guys aren't a good team."

No worries though. I've been there before. Making retarded comments after a loss such as "you struggled against so and so, therefore you will lose soon" even though you know damn well high seeded teams have barely survived against low seeded teams and then gone on to do great things the rest of the way. It only happens just about every god damn tournament since its inception.

But as I said, don't fret. I've done the exact same thing after a loss before. I'm not proud of it.

I think everybody is surprised when a power house goes down to a mid-major in an early round. I do think there is some "overlooking" factor that happens, mix that with a cold night of shooting, and you get last year's Norfolk State for Mizzou. But a focused power house should be able to overcome a somewhat bad night with pure will (in the first round and maybe the 2nd round) I'd think. I don't think they were over-rated at all, but it's not like folks who don't like KU (I'm on of them) wouldn't take the opportunity to hang a banner even if it's not right. It's not very often that KU loses, so for those of us who live in KC, on the Missouri side, we have to take our digs when we can. But I must admit, I don't think I called them over-rated. In the case of Bucknell, having family who graduated from there, it was just sweet. Then again, being from Va. Beach originally, left me wide open to plenty of "back home" criticism form the friends too. That being said, I'm a Chiefs fan so having insults lobbed at me about my team's failures means little anymore.

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Originally Posted by Cochise

It's not his fault he caught the only curse more powerful than the Madden curse, the curse of having Claynus swing from your nut sack

That's the difference between playing UNC and Bucknell and the ilk Mizzou certainly doesn't get a pass for a lights out Norfolk St. team. It was a pathetic loss just like those for the Beaks.

Honestly though, I think Bradley & Northern Iowa were just as good as yesterday's UNC team. And Pomeroy agrees, rating them all in the mid-20s strength wise. Who cares what the name on the jersey reads? Florida Gulf Coast would rip Kentucky right now. Names are meaningless on a one-year basis.